Individualisation, personalisation and person-centredness in mental healthcare: a scoping review of concepts and linguistic network visualisation

BACKGROUND: Targeted mental health interventions are increasingly described as individualised, personalised or person-centred approaches. However, the definitions for these terms vary significantly. Their interchangeable use prevents operationalisations and measures. OBJECTIVE: This scoping review provides a synthesis of key concepts, definitions and the language used in the context of these terms in an effort to delineate their use for future research. STUDY SELECTION AND ANALYSIS: Our search on PubMed, EBSCO and Cochrane provided 2835 relevant titles. A total of 176 titles were found eligible for extracting data. A thematic analysis was conducted to synthesise the underlying aspects of individualisation, personalisation and person-centredness. Network visualisations of co-occurring words in 2625 abstracts were performed using VOSViewer. FINDINGS: Overall, 106 out of 176 (60.2%) articles provided concepts for individualisation, personalisation and person-centredness. Studies using person-centredness provided a conceptualisation more often than the others. A thematic analysis revealed medical, psychological, sociocultural, biological, behavioural, economic and environmental dimensions of the concepts. Practical frameworks were mostly found related to person-centredness, while theoretical frameworks emerged in studies on personalisation. Word co-occurrences showed common psychiatric words in all three network visualisations, but differences in further contexts. CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS: The use of individualisation, personalisation and person-centredness in mental healthcare is multifaceted. While individualisation was the most generic term, personalisation was often used in biomedical or technological studies. Person-centredness emerged as the most well-defined concept, with many frameworks often related to dementia care. We recommend that the use of these terms follows a clear definition within the context of their respective disorders, treatments or medical settings. SCOPING REVIEW REGISTRATION: Open Science Framework: osf.io/uatsc.